Galileo

And yet it indeed moves!

INTRODUCTION

Questions like "What can I know?", "Can I know something for sure?", "How change or grow the knowledge?",these are not sterile academic questions, but issues that affect both our individual lifes and institutions. Since always the reflection on the "method" has gradually revealed as a reference point not only for cultural choices but also fortechnology's decisions. Scientific theories are not simple "recipes", but courageous attempts to interpret and change the world. John Gribbin explores the progress of science through the lifes of scientists. The two keys to scientific progress are the personal touch and building gradually on what has gone before. Science is made by people, not people by science.
Purpose of the research project
Thefollowing research and documentation on Galileo Galilei, italian physicist, philosopher, astronomer and mathematician, father of modern science, aims to show from all angles, the life, discoveries, thoughts of this great character. With this research we want to introduce one of the greatest person of human history in its historical period, reconstructing all the mechanisms that have resulted in what weknow today thanks to Galileo Galilei. How Galileo arrived to make his discoveries? The society and the historical period in which he lived, have helped him? Have been an advantage or a hindrance? Beginning with the childhood of the scientist, what kind of education led him become what we know? (“Portrait of Galileo Galilei” Justus Sustermans 1636)

Galileo’s time period
Galileo lived in themiddle of the Scientific Revolution which is dated between the publication of Copernicus' ”On the revolution of the heavenly bodies " of 1543 and Newton's "The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy" of 1687
The Scientific Revolution changes the conception of nature, which is seen as an object, like a set of phenomena to be studied, and no longer a spiritual aspect, nature has no purposeand has no soul, has nothing to do with human needs and desires. In nature everything is the result of specific causes. Nature is a set of relationships, in fact, the scientist does not affect the principle of something unverifiable, but only the relationships and phenomena that lead to that end. Nature is governed by laws which are necessary or invariable principle ways in which nature operates.Therefore, nature scientifically is the set of laws governing phenomena and make them predictable. The science borns because we want to understand the mechanisms to prevent certain things.
Science is a knowledge built on mathematic foundations , is based on observed facts, the calculation and measurement. Its proceedings are public and not private as it was magic. So science is the same asuniversal knowledge.
The purpose of science is to know the laws of nature to control them to our advantage.
Modern science was born when Europe changed the type of society and economic structure. This was useful to stage the most powerful armies, cities expand, improved lines of communication ... The science is used to create a scentific knowledge wich permit to the man to have an orientation in theworld and in the case of Galileo, even out of it.
After the Council of Trent was born an official culture wich everyone had to follow to not be considered heretic. Through his discoveries with his telescope, Galileo proved the falsity of the Aristotelian-Ptolemaic theory. But there was a reason of state that almost made it dangerous to admit the truth, because he went against what the Bible said.For example, until then the existence of the land was intended to man himself and the universe revolved around it. Geocentrism was useful to anthropocentrism, and with the theory of heliocentrism, we have the end of anthropocentrism presupposed from the church. So in 1616 the church issued a decree that prevented the teaching based on the Copernican system. Moving to Florence, Galileo in 1624...